Do You Believe Me Now?
by clarawithfitzsimmonsin221b
Summary: They were perfect for each other. A couple meant to be. Now the whole team is left wondering how the recent crises have left them in such shattered pieces that their relationship has come to this. (Title references a Jimmy Wayne song)
1. Coping

Coulson slid the cracked hard drive into a plastic bag and handed it to Skye.

"Take that down to Fitzsim-, " he stopped, swallowed painfully, and restarted. "Take that down to Fitz for analyzing." Skye nodded in assent, not trusting herself to speak. She grabbed the bag and headed down to the lab. A lone figure was bent over the microscope, leaving a lot of empty space in the lab that used to be filled. _Too much,_ thought Skye. She tapped on the door to the lab-lately they let him lock it so that if he needed to be alone he could. Fitz looked up slowly, then reached over and pushed a button to let Skye in.

"Hey," she spoke softly, cautiously, "Coulson wants you to take a look at this." She handed him the hard drive. Fitz looked at it, nodded, and then went back to whatever was under the microscope. Skye looked at the jar on the table and tried not to think about the fact that whatever material was in it would have been a source of wonder and amazement to a certain biochemist-a certain biochemist who was no longer with them. Skye pushed the thought away. Fitz looked up with question in his eyes-no one ever lingered in the lab anymore unless they needed something. It just hurt all of them too much. No one was quite sure how Fitz, of all people, was able to go on working in the lab. In fact, he spent just about every waking moment there-as though nothing had changed. Skye just shook her head and Fitz returned to his analysis. Skye left him to his memories, taking her own out the door with her.

Fitz watched Skye go from the corner of his eye. He leaned back on his stool, returning to the non-productive state he had been in for the past couple weeks. He did his best for the rest of the team, but he knew he wasn't really fooling anyone. Losing her would have hurt enough, but having her choose to walk away broke him. The lab was empty and as hard as he tried he couldn't fill the space that Jemma had left behind. Fitz stared blankly at the sample he had been bent over all morning. _She would have finished it by now. _A sob formed in his chest but he firmly pressed his lips together and swallowed it. _She's not crying over you Fitz_, he told himself sternly. It was hard to accept that all it took to break the closest friendship he had ever had was a single person, but he knew better than anyone how true it was. _She's gone and she's not coming back._ He shook his head and pulled the microscope closer. _You need to accept it and move on. _But the tears that rolled down his face and blurred his vision told him that he never would.

Skye curled herself into a ball in her bunk after she returned from the lab. She was almost to the point where she didn't care if the team saw her go to pieces anymore. Everyone told her that they would all feel better with time, but as far as she could see, allowing time to heal just allowed for more things to go wrong. Skye stared at the only picture she had of Simmons. The two of them were standing outside the Bus just after the ice fiasco at the Academy. Lying in her side, Skye watched Simmons' smiling face blur as the tears started. _I'd give anything_, she thought desperately, _anything to go back to that. _She closed her eyes tightly, wishing it was possible. _Before Hydra, before Ward, before she left. _But Skye knew that there was no going back. The world had conspired to rip apart her family, the family she hadn't even known about until a few short weeks ago. Now she had lost so much that she couldn't even fight the world, couldn't do the one thing that had kept her going since she escaped foster care. The world had taken the only thing that _mattered_ to her and broken it irreparably and her spirit along with it. So when the sobs followed the tears, Skye didn't bother trying to stop them. She let them rip through her and let the pain flow unchecked. _It can't hurt me anymore than it already has. _But she knew that it always could and it always would and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Ward tried not to hear the sound of Skye's torment but it wasn't like he could turn his ears off. In another time he would have gone over and held her, comforted her, but he couldn't do that now. _I'd only make things worse, _he thought bitterly, _after all the shit Fury made me do to them. _He didn't have a very high opinion of the director at the moment. Ward hadn't foreseen a problem with being a spy inside Hydra. That was before he let his emotions compromise his job. Even now it shocked him that the cold, hard trainee was feeling so completely lost at the absence of a team member. _Why couldn't Coulson just let me be a specialist? _But he knew that he wouldn't trade the time he had spent with the team, wouldn't give up the lessons that he had learned here, not even if it meant he could fix all of S.H.I.E.L.D. Ward was selfish that way. He knew that he was part of the reason that Skye was dying inside and that his 'betrayal' was what broke the team apart and drove Simmons to leave. He knew he couldn't forgive himself for wrecking the very thing he had sworn to protect. He pushed open the door to his bunk. _I need a drink._


	2. Uncertainty

Coulson shut the door to his office after Skye left. There was a pile of paperwork sitting on his desk, but he couldn't make himself sit down to finish it. He wandered over to one of his shelves. He felt tears prick the back of his eyes as his gaze fell on his original 1940's SHIELD microscope. Simmons had loved the old thing as much as Coulson had, more even. _Where did I go wrong? _thought Coulson, _why did she leave?_ He had thought that they would always stick together, his little team. That even in the face of betrayal and terror, they would be the eye of the storm. _How could things possibly change this much?_ Now all he saw around him was destruction-of friendships, family; whole lives ripped to shreds in a matter of weeks. Jemma leaving had hit a whole new level. In his mind's eye he could still see Fitz's face as she went with Trip and walked away, not looking back. Coulson felt the tears spill over because he knew that that pain was never going to leave Fitz, just as Coulson's pain over many good-byes would never leave him. Quaking, Coulson finally made his way over to his desk. He didn't try to work. He put his head on top of the stack of paper and let his salty tears soak the reports. _It's just too much._

The cockpit was as silent as ever, but it had a new ring to it, a sorrow that was never present before. May continued staring stoically out the windshield as she had for the many months that the team had been on the Bus. To any observer she would appear unchanged by the trauma she had endured. Inside her head was a different story. She had never expected to come to care so much about the rest of the team. This op was about Coulson. That was why she was here. He was the only reason she had agreed to come. So how did the rest of them get into her head? Little Fitz, with his curly hair and monkeys, always with Simmons, the two of them talking about some new SciOps contraption or something. Ward, with his smile and defensive shell, hiding a troubled past. Even Skye, the hacker-turned-agent who defied just about everything May believed in, had managed to worm her way past May's personal defenses. _How did it come to this? _She thought desperately, searching for an answer inside herself. There was always a reason, a purpose to the pain and suffering. She never let herself feel needlessly-she had been stung too many times. So why, _why_, did the departure of their biochemist and the collapse of their team sear her soul so badly?


	3. Changes

The lab at the Hub was silent. It was late and almost everyone had left already to go home, or back to their rooms. Only one scientist would be up at this hour and she was determinedly analyzing a sample that had been sent to the Hub earlier that day. Jemma Simmons twisted the focus on her microscope and peered at the orange goo that was under magnification. It was one of many samples that had been sent for analysis after S.H.I.E.L.D. rose like a phoenix from its own ashes. The silence unnerved Jemma. _I never _really_ worked in silence before, not with-_she stopped herself before she could go off on that train of thought. She had made her decision, she would stick with it. She pretended that it didn't bother her that Trip had gone to bed hours ago and left her alone in the lab. _Except it does_, her conscience chided her, _it does bother you because a certain someone would have stayed until you left, even if he fell asleep working._ Jemma pulled her face away from the lens and rested her head in her hands. _It's true_, she thought, _Fitz would have stayed, and he _has_ fallen asleep in the lab before. _She smiled at that memory, forcing herself to focus on the fact that it was just that-a memory. Jemma remembered all the reasons that she had accepted Trip's offer to work with him in the hub, all the reason's she had left Coulson's team. _More like abandoned_, her conscience sounded in the back of her head again. Jemma took a deep breath and forced herself to return to her analysis. Work was all she had done since the Bus had dropped her and Trip off at the Hub. Work in the morning, work all day long, work late into the night. Sometimes she stopped long enough to sleep, but usually she worked through the nighttime hours until morning came and she continued the cycle. Trip brought her meals to her in the lab, and even though she always refused, he always asked if she wanted to join him in the dining hall. He was concerned about her. As much as he wanted her to stay here in the Hub with him, he was starting to wonder if it was healthy for her. One night he offered to have her over to his apartment to watch the season premiere of Doctor Who, a show he knew she loved. He didn't quite understand why she looked away, pain written all over her face and shook her head, although he had a pretty good idea. He guessed she always watched Doctor Who with a certain person and Trip didn't want to drag back any memories when she was trying to move on. He had shrugged it off and walked out. After he left, Jemma had sat down and let loose all of her tears that she had held in since she walked away. She cried for the father in Coulson that she had lost, the sister in Skye that she had given up. Jemma wept for the protector in Ward, the Ward that she knew and trusted that she had given up on, and she sobbed for the mother in May that she hadn't stuck around long enough to see. But most of all she bawled for the best friend that she had left behind with no explanation, leaving him completely bewildered. Her first and most loyal companion, beside her ever since they met and she had turned and walked away from the life they had built together like it was a one night stand. _Does he feel as lost as I do sometimes?_ She wondered through her sobs. _Probably more, knowing Fitz_, she answered her own question, bringing on a new wave of sobbing. Once she had cried herself dry and pulled herself back together she had made a silent promise to never let herself go like that again. She would be strong and stoic and remember why she made her choices. So while her conscience tugged at her mind that evening during her analysis Jemma shut it out and zoned in on her work, not paying attention to the frequent reminders of how things could have been. Jemma Simmons had changed.

Fitz cast a look around the lab. Everything was impeccably in order; the counters were all cleaned and the equipment returned to its proper place in the cabinets. _Unfortunately_, thought Fitz miserably, _that means I'm out of reasons not to go to bed._ He knew she would be waiting for him, just behind his eyelids. He wasn't sure if he was more scared of having to watch her walk away again or of having to wake up and realize that dreams were all he had left of her. He resigned himself to leave the lab-he knew better than to try and work through the night. The first time Skye had caught him at it she had ended up having to drag Coulson down to pull Fitz away from his work. Coulson had made him promise not to run himself into the ground over this, even though that was exactly what Fitz felt like doing. Ever the obedient agent, Fitz had promised and regrettably that meant that he had to sleep. _Pretend to sleep, actually_, Fitz thought to himself. He rarely truly slept at night. It was only when his body was so physically exhausted that it forced him to surrender to sleep that he actually let go of consciousness. When a huge yawn split his face, Fitz conceded that tonight was probably going to be one of those nights. He paused at the door to the lab as his eyes landed on a white cupboard just to his left. He walked over and pulled it open, exposing the contents. His heart squeezed when he saw the scented candle and lighter inside the cabinet. The candle was homemade, swirled blue and dark green, with just a tiny streak of white through it. Tears pricked Fitz's eyes for the millionth time since Jemma left and he grabbed the candle and lighter and left the lab.

Skye was sitting alone in the common area, drinking some bottled water and trying not to think. She knew that if she let her mind wander too much it would most certainly land on the one subject she didn't want to focus on. So she stared blankly at the couch opposite her arm chair and took another sip of water, the same way she had passed her entire evening. All of a sudden she found her view blocked by a figure in dark clothes.

"Can I offer you something stronger?" She knew the voice well, or she thought she had, before everything happened. But now the voice was guarded, cautious, and ready to run if she turned her anger on him as she had ever since he came back. Skye looked up at Grant Ward, her former S.O. and the man she had trusted more than anyone, until he turned into the enemy and broke her heart. Even though she knew now that he had been playing a triple agent for Fury, that didn't mean she could automatically forgive him. She hadn't been groomed to automatically accept orders from high command as the word of God, which was, incidentally, the reason she had ended up with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place and she wasn't going to simply allow Ward back into her life. Despite the fact that he was following orders, he had lied to them, played with their feelings and broken their trust. Now he had to earn it back, if he really wanted it. Normally when he tried to engage her she pushed him away, kept him at a distance, but tonight she was already too deeply in pain to care. _We've lost so much,_ she thought, _is there really anything more he can do to me that he hasn't already?_ So she nodded to Ward, who simply sat down opposite her and poured two drinks from the glass bottle he had pulled from the bar. Skye grabbed one of the cups and let the alcohol burn her throat. She didn't look at Ward, didn't speak to him. If he wanted to talk, he could figure out how to start this conversation that neither of them really wanted to have.

"Skye…" He said her name softly and let it trail off, getting her to glance over at him. His face was one she had seen before, one that she thought meant he was finally going to open up and trust her, and at the time she had thought that that was exactly what he had done. The memory of their time in the underground bunker and the discoveries that she had made there seared her brain and she glared at Ward.

"Cut the crap, Ward." She swung herself upright in the chair. "If you have something you want to tell me, spit it out, fast. I'm not going to play your games anymore and I'm really not in the mood to put up with your shit right now, especially not tonight." Skye put her empty glass on the table in between them and crossed her arms.

"I just wanted to….talk." The words sounded lame, after all that had happened, and from the look on Ward's face he knew it. Skye scoffed.

"That's all I wanted too, Ward. To talk. But you didn't feel like it and now I've rescinded the offer. So if you're looking for someone who will 'talk' with you, look somewhere else, because I'm not that person. Not anymore." Her anger was back in full force, reminding her why she had been pushing him away since he returned. She pushed out of her chair and fled to her bunk, hiding the tears that blurred her vision as she went.


	4. Concerns

"Sir, we've received communication from Agent Hill." Coulson looked up at Ward who was standing in the doorway.

"She wants us to return to the Hub-says she has intel for us." Coulson nodded silently.

"Go tell May to set the course," he told Ward, "and Ward?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You better tell Fitz as well."

* * *

Skye was sitting with Fitz in the lab. He had managed to repair the broken hard drive and now she was in the process of decoding it. Fitz looked like he was hard at work tinkering with some scraps of metal, but Skye knew how to tell when someone was just occupying their hands. God knows it was something the entire team had been doing often enough lately. Skye watched Fitz for a moment, then went back to her laptop. _Today is not the day to bring it up, _she told herself. All of a sudden the plane tipped sharply to the left.

"Are we turning?" asked Skye, grabbing the hard drive so it wouldn't slide across the lab.

"Must be," Fitz replied, seemingly uninterested.

"We are." They both looked up at the sound of Ward's voice. Skye fell silent and spun her chair so that she was facing away from her former SO. Ward turned from her with a pained expression on his face to look at Fitz.

"Fitz, Coulson said I should tell you, we've been called to the Hub." Skye spun around as the sound of clinking metal stopped, shock showing on both agent's faces.

"The Hub?" asked Fitz and Skye in unison. Ward nodded, watching Fitz uneasily. Skye was the one to break the resulting silence.

"Why?"

"Hill has intel for us," answered Ward.

"So we're just going for intel?" Fitz asked quietly.

"As far as I know." Fitz nodded and Ward quickly headed back upstairs.

"Why do we need to go all the way back to the Hub for intel?" Skye muttered to herself, pulling her laptop back toward her. Fitz shrugged, resuming his tinkering with a renewed force.

* * *

Agent Maria Hill leaned back in her chair. She absentmindedly scanned the report in her hand, then tossed it onto the stack on the desk in front of her, comprised completely of reports that could have been identical if it weren't for the changes in date. She pushed the button on her phone that connected her to her secretary.

"Tina, get me Agent Simmons up here ASAP."

"Yes ma'am." Hill ran her hand over her forehead and back through her hair.

_Tap tap tap. _

"Enter," called Hill. The door swung open and Jemma Simmons stepped into the office.

"You wanted to see me ma'am?"

"Yes...take a seat Agent Simmons." Jemma did as instructed and looked curiously at the assistant director.

"Do you know what these are?" asked Agent Hill, gesturing to the stacks of folders on her desk. Puzzled, Jemma shook her head.

"No ma'am."

"They're reports, Agent Simmons, all of them concerning you." Hill carefully watched Simmons' reaction. Jemma looked confused, then understanding flashed in her eyes and her face fell into a closed mask.

"I'm not quite sure I'm following you Agent Hill."

"Staying alone in the lab until the earliest hours of the morning, completely withdrawing from your coworkers, spending every waking moment working even when you don't have a case? I let the first few incidences slide, but now, this has gone too far," Hill paused, hesitating like she wasn't quite sure of how to phrase her next sentence, then she took a breath and said, "None of us questioned your decision to leave Coulson's team, despite the fact that you had been ordered to stay there. However, I am beginning to question whether that was a wise decision or not." Hill looked directly at Simmons, who had gone very still at the mention of her old team leader.

"I don't see how my social habits are any concern of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s as I'm in compliance with all protocol," she said cooly.

"They wouldn't be," Hill countered, "if your friends-if you can call them that, seeing as you don't hardly spend time with them-didn't think that you had withdrawn to the point of unhealthiness." She could see Simmons contemplating this, turning it over in her mind. It looked like some of her 'friends' would be getting a piece of her mind later. Hill spoke again, not giving the young agent in front of her a chance to respond.

"This stack," she said, resting her hand on the other pile, "is applications. Rejected applications, to be specific."

"For what?" inquired Simmons.

"Coulson's team needs a new biochemist," Hill stated matter-of-factly. She watched as a slice of pain slashed through Jemma's well-crafted mask before her stoic look set back into place.

"I don't see how that concerns me any longer," Simmons said in a monotone.

"Well you see Agent Simmons, all of them have been rejected by the same person, for the same reason," Hill told her.

"And who is that ma'am?" questioned Simmons tersely.

"Leopold Fitz," Hill met Jemma's eyes as she spoke, completely aware of the painful memories that the name would dredge up and choosing to use it anyway, "and would you care to hear his reasoning?" Simmons had gone completely motionless and didn't acknowledge her superior officer at all, no longer completely trusting her voice. Agent Hill took that as an invitation to continue.

"He told Agent Coulson, and I quote, 'They're not Simmons.'" Hill paused to let that sink in, then cocked a brow at Simmons who was visibly struggling to remain calm, tears hovering just behind her eyes.

"Is something the matter Agent Simmons?" Jemma quickly shook her head.

"No ma'am," she choked out. Hill held Simmons' eyes for a long moment. Maria might not know exactly what was going on in Jemma's head or what happened to make her quit the team, but she understood that sometimes an agent felt that the only way to solve a problem was to walk away-she had done that more times than she could count. _And regretted it almost every time, _she reminded herself soberly. She sighed and relaxed her strict expression.

"I didn't tell you this to upset you, Agent Simmons," she finally said, "but I strongly suggest you reflect on your decisions." Hill leveled her gaze at the young agent in front of her, "Either you pull yourself together and adjust to life here in the Hub in a way that is satisfactory to both your associates and myself or I will solve your issues for you," Simmons flinched at Hill's words, "and you may or may not like the outcome of that," finished Hill. "Understood?"

"Yes ma'am," muttered Simmons in reply. Maria nodded.

"Then you are dismissed, Agent Simmons." Jemma rose as quickly as possible and fled the office. Hill watched her go with another sigh. _Why do all my problems seem to revolve around Coulson's team?_


	5. Home

Tears made their way down Jemma's face as she hurried back to her room. She kept her head down, so she wasn't sure who spoke when she heard,

"Jemma?" She looked up.

"Oh. Hello Trip." He took one look at her face and pulled her into a hug. This only made her cry harder, remembering the times that Fitz had done the same for her.

"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Trip, holding her out at arm's length.

"I've just been to see Agent Hill," sniffled Jemma.

"Oh," said Trip, understanding flashing across his face. _He must have filed one of those reports, _realized Jemma. She shook her head, _of course he filed one. _Trip looked down at her.

"What are you going to do?" He asked.

"Honestly Trip, I'm not exactly sure." Simmons swallowed a new lump that was forming in her throat, "I think I just need to be alone right now." Trip immediately released her from his hold.

"Of course." She started to walk past him. "Hey Jemma?" She looked back at him. "Whatever you decide, make sure it's what you want to do." She offered him a watery smile.

"Thanks Trip." He nodded and watched her with worried eyes until he turned the corner at the end of the hall.

* * *

Jemma shut her door and clicked the lock into place before she completely went to pieces. She slid down against the door, shaking and sobbing uncontrollably. She had thought that it would be simpler to walk away; that it would hurt less. _Look how that's working out Jemma, _she thought bitterly. _But what choice did I have? _She thought back to those last few weeks she had spent on the Bus. Things had been too chaotic for her to follow and after not to long it had overwhelmed her. _And so I left, _she reminded herself, _for good reason_. Against her will, images surfaced in her mind. Coulson, shocked, but reserved; May, stoic and unresponsive. Jemma hadn't been able to look Ward in the eye when she left. _But at this point, I'd even be glad to see him, wouldn't I?_ She saw Skye, standing on the cargo ramp, tears streaming from her eyes. The other girl hadn't understood one bit why Jemma had had to go. The picture of their last teammate rose now, even with Simmons fighting it all the way. She gasped out loud with physical pain when she saw Fitz's eyes, filled with unspeakable agony as he watched his best friend walk away from him. His curls were hanging frizzy and limp from the mist that had been falling that day. She could still hear him calling, screaming her name, begging her to stay, even as she walked over to where Trip was waiting for her. Jemma pulled her knees up to her chest and rolled over on her side, crying out with each tear that she could remember seeing roll down her best friend's face. _Fitz_, she thought desperately. He was all she had had for the longest time and she was all he had had too. _What made me think I could just walk away from that? After all this time? _A new wave of tears came over her and Jemma let it take her under. She lost track of how long she lay there, crying her eyes out. Finally she let her head fall to the side and her gaze landed on her closet. The door was halfway open and she could just see the corner of her trunk, which she had shoved into the closet after emptying it when she made the move to the Hub. Jemma felt the decision before she had consciously made it, the pieces fitting together like a puzzle in her mind. She forced herself up off the floor and she pulled the trunk out from the shadows of her closet, swinging it up onto her neatly made bed. Dust stuck to her fingers as she clicked open the lock and flung back the lid. She gathered the hanging clothes off the rack and started the long process of condensing her life back into a single box.

* * *

"S.H.I.E.L.D. 6-1-6 you are cleared for landing." May carefully positioned the Bus to taxi into the Hub. Meanwhile, Coulson was briefing the rest of the team down by the bar.

"Alright guys," he said, "We're going in and straight to Hill's office. Whatever intel she has for us is obviously important or she wouldn't have called us all the way back here." Skye, Fitz, and Ward all nodded, strapping into their tactical gear. They might be entering friendly territory, but they had all learned the hard way that friendly territory could be the most dangerous. They buckled themselves in, preparing for May's usual flawless landing. They touched back down with hardly a bump, and rolled to a stop on the Hub airstrip. The team exited the plane and found Agent Maria Hill waiting for them.

"Coulson," she said, nodding to the team leader. "Let's all head inside." A few minutes later found the five of them sitting in Hill's office, waiting for her to brief them on the intel.

"So Maria, what's the latest?" asked Coulson. Hill hesitated, "I actually don't have any mission intel for you," she confessed, "but I needed a reason to get you back to the Hub without asking questions." Coulson looked at her with a so-we're-keeping-secrets-again? look. She sighed. "Trust me Coulson, you'll be thanking me for this one." She handed him a manila folder.

"What's this?" Coulson questioned, not opening the file.

"It's an application," said Hill, "the last one I'm giving you." Coulson rolled his eyes and held the folder back out to Hill.

"I would have thought that our refusal of the last twelve or so would have made it clear to you Maria. There is no one you can hunt down that will fill the opening in our team." Everyone noticed how he avoided saying her name, as though hearing it out loud would shred the semblance of normality that they had all put together.

"I think you'll find that this particular applicant meets all of your requirements," retorted Hill, folding her arms and not taking the folder from Coulson. Fitz cleared his throat.

"With all due respect ma'am, that's not possible. There's only one person in this world that could meet every requirement, as you would know if you read our rejection reports on the other applications, and we know what she's doing, so whoever is in that file can't possibly fit the bill."

"I did in fact read your rejection reports, Agent Fitz," responded Hill, "and I took appropriate actions to ensure that your demands were resolved." Fitz furrowed his brow, looking very confused. Coulson, processing what Hill was telling them, flipped open the folder.

"Are you saying…" Fitz's sentence trailed off as Coulson's eyes grew wide staring at the picture on the application, "Sir?"

"She's saying you're wrong Fitz." A quiet voice with a British accent floated into the room from the doorway, "The person in that file does fit the bill." Fitz was frozen, staring at the figure standing by the open door. His eyes and brain seemed to be having a battle, one telling him what was right in front of him and the other telling him that it wasn't possible. Finally, Simmons pushed herself off of the door frame and ran to her best friend. She wrapped her arms around him and in a reflex he pulled her close in an embrace. Skye, Ward, and May were staring at their missing team member with shock and Coulson was stuck looking between the file in his hand and the couple in front of him.

"Simmons…" Fitz recovered enough control over his vocal cords to sigh her name into her hair. He squeezed her even tighter into the hug, the realization of what this meant finally sinking in. When they finally broke apart Simmons found herself being yanked away and back into an embrace, this time with Skye, who had tears in her eyes. When Skye released her she migrated back over to where Fitz was seated, still working on recovering his senses. Simmons took a deep breath and addressed Coulson.

"Sir, if there is still a vacancy on the team, I would appreciate you allowing me to return to my position." Coulson just looked at her.

"_Of course_ there's a vacancy Jemma," He finally said, "How could we _ever_ replace you?" Tears welled up in Jemma's eyes and she found herself being pulled back into Fitz's arms, as though he had to make sure that she was real, that she was actually there. Agent Hill gave a suspiciously fake sounding cough and Coulson looked over at her.

"You're welcome," she said, "now get out of my office. I don't want to hear from any of you for at least two weeks. Can you manage that?" Coulson gave her a mock salute and May rolled her eyes. The team left the building and returned to the Bus, complete once more.

_Well that takes care of that,_ thought Hill as she sat back down at her desk. _Now if I could just get a handle on a certain couple of master assassins…._


End file.
